Tag Archives: Sabin Vaccine Institute

An excerpt of a blog post byPeter J. Hotez, MD, PhD, published in The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas (TAMEST) blog. Peter Hotez, MD, PhD is the founding dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and professor of the Departments of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology & Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine (Research!America member) where he is also chief of a new Section of Pediatric Tropical Medicine and the Texas Children’s Hospital Endowed Chair of Tropical Pediatrics. Hotez is the president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and the Baker Institute Fellow in Disease and Poverty at Rice University.

Dr. Peter HotezSabin Vaccine Institute and Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, National School of Tropical Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine.

The National School of Tropical Medicine, launched at Baylor College of Medicine in 2011, was established to offer a potent North American colleague to the century-old British tropical medicine schools in London and Liverpool and tropical disease institutes in Amsterdam, Antwerp, Basel, Hamburg, and elsewhere in Europe.

An essential cornerstone of the National School is translational research and development, with several core faculty members actively engaged in developing new diagnostics and vaccines for the 17 major diseases of poverty known as the neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). The NTDs represent a group of parasitic and related infections that actually cause poverty because of their long-term and disabling effects on childhood cognition and physical fitness and development, adult productive capacity, and the health of girls and women. They are the most common afflictions of the extremely poor in developing countries. Continue reading →

As reported in the Washington Post, the number of West Nile virus cases in the U.S. is on the rise. Traditionally a disease that affects people in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, 48 states in the U.S. have reported cases in 2012 alone. Nearly 2,000 cases and 87 deaths, including one Wednesday in DC, have been reported overall. The West Nile virus, a neglected tropical disease or NTD, can cause flu-like symptoms or, in severe cases, even brain damage.

Peter Hotez, MD, PhD, director of the Texas-based product development partnership Sabin Vaccine Institute, recently wrote a New York Times op-ed addressing the increasing thread of West Nile right here in the U.S., “Tropical Disease: The New Plague of Poverty.” As Hotez points out, West Nile is just one of several NTDs that have a presence in the United States. Dengue fever, another virus transmitted through mosquitoes, has been reported in Texas, Florida and Hawaii. A recent estimate finds that 300,000 individuals in the U.S. have Chagas disease, an infection transmitted through insects that can cause heart failure and even sudden death. These NTDs pose an immediate threat to the health of Americans, particularly in impoverished areas of the South where poorer sanitation and drainage systems allow NTD “carriers” to thrive.

NTDs can go undocumented for long periods of time, can be extremely debilitating and have inflicted a large toll on peoples’ health and economic stability around the world. NTDs paint an increasingly troubling picture for American health. Toxic and ineffective, or in some cases no treatments, exist for many of these NTDs, and better surveillance and monitoring is desperately needed. With little financial incentive, private companies are reluctant to invest in this research. However, there is hope. Federally funded researchers at the National Institutes of Health have identified a new drug that has the potential to treat Chagas disease. Additional clinical trials will determine its safety and efficacy for widespread use. Bloomberg recently reported that another PDP, the Dengue Vaccine Initiative, has developed four dengue vaccines that are currently undergoing clinical trials. Continuing to fund this type of research and development is critical to ensuring that the promise of these vaccines becomes a reality.